Welcome to the Misadventures of Widowhood blog!

In January of 2012 my soul mate of 42 years passed away after nearly 12 years of living with severe disabilities due to a stroke. I survived the first year after Don’s death doing what most widows do---trying to make sense of my world turned upside down. The pain and heartache of loss, my dark humor, my sweetest memories and, yes, even my pity parties are well documented in this blog.

Now that I’m a "seasoned widow" the focus of my writing has changed. I’m still a widow looking through that lens but I’m also a woman searching for contentment, friends and a voice in my restless world. Some people say I have a quirky sense of humor that shows up from time to time in this blog. Others say I make some keen observations about life and growing older. I say I just write about whatever passes through my days---the good, bad and the ugly. Comments welcome and encouraged. Let's get a dialogue going! Jean

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

It was one of those days that started out great. Cool but pleasant
driving conditions. Money in the bank longing to be spent. I got a parking
space up close to the doors at the super store where I can buy everything from
groceries to paint thinner. Not that I’m going to thin paint any time soon but at
least I know where I can go to buy some when the mood strikes me. Inside, I
walked right up to the courtesy desk, no waiting in line like I expected to do
this close after Christmas. And surprise, surprise they had my lost watch in
their ‘lost and found’ drawer. It had been in that drawer since the Monday
before Christmas, not long enough for it to make friends with the two dozen
other watches waiting patiently for their owners to take them home.

I did my grocery shopping which wasn’t that easy to do
because I was also busy patting myself on the back for passing up all the tempting
things in the cookies, candy, chips and ice cream aisles. Walking through those aisles was a real test of my will
power. I had worked hard on
my recent weight loss but I had also strayed off my diet over the holidays with
all temptations around and I was determined to get back on track before I can’t even see that
track anymore or worse, I don’t care anymore that it’s located on the corner
of Better Health and Common Sense. The last area of the store I had to walk
through to get to the cashiers was the Evil Bakery where I said to myself: Why you’ve been such a good little girl
passing up all those cookies, candy, chips and ice cream you deserve a Bismarck.

“Are you crazy?” I heard another voice saying. I looked
around. I was alone so I figured I must be talking to myself again. Is that a byproduct
of living alone or am I---well, you know---on the bridge leading to the land of
senility? If so, I should be there by
now because I’ve been talking to myself since Ring was a pup. You know Ring. I
wrote about him in my last blog. He’s the old Beagle Don had when he was a kid.
“Ring time” was a marker for him, sort of like using B.C. and A.D. for before
and after Christ was born. Okay, I’d better strike that last line out of the
final draft so I don’t offend anyone who might erroneously think I’m comparing
Ring’s importance in Don’s world to the importance of Jesus in the history of
the world. But darn it, to a boy of 14 or 15 the death of a dog you’ve had your
entire life is pretty important. If not for Ring’s passing, Don might never
have reached out and discovered girls.

Back to the jelly filled Bismarck. As I reached in the case
to pull one out I swear it looked at me as if to say, “Sweetie, are you sure
you want to do this?” And because I really didn’t want to do that I ate it in
the parking lot before coming home so the evidence of my sinful ways wouldn’t
be around to mock me. Damn it, it's time for a sugar detox again!
How many times do I have to have sugary treats grab me by the throat and insist
that all my troubles will be far away if I just consumed it? Wait! “All my troubles
will be far away?” Isn’t that a line in a Beatles’ song? Great. Now I’m channeling a song that never fails to make me cry. “Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so
far away. Now it looks as though they're here to stay. Oh, I believe in
yesterday.” Yup, only a crazy person could connect a classic Beatles song like Yesterday to a Bismarck from the bakery
aisle. Or maybe a would-be writer could to that, too? So am I off the hook, off
the train to Crazyville? I guess as long as I’m not grabbing the aluminum foil
out of the drawer in the kitchen to fashion myself a hat, I’m still okay.

Sunday, December 28, 2014

For several weeks I’ve had an empty Stetson deodorant stick
container sitting next to my computer monitor. It’s one of those things that if
it were found there after I died it would drive the people cleaning out the
house nuts. “Why keep an empty container like that?” they’d want to know. “And
why keep it inside the computer wardrobe?” “What was a man’s deodorant stick
even doing in the house?” “Why didn’t we notice how flaky Aunt Jean must have
gotten in recent years?” Confession time. It’s a widow’s thing and a little
back-story is needed to understand all the whys and wherefores involved.

My husband wore Stetson everything---cologne, deodorant,
antiperspirant, after-shave, their whole product line---that part isn’t too
hard to figure out. But it was getting increasingly harder to find it in the area
stores so one time I bought another brand. Big mistake. You should have seen Don
at bath time when I handed it to him and his aphasic, stroke damaged brain
couldn’t tell me he didn’t like that brand. His vocabulary at that point in time
was around twenty-five words and “don’t buy this crap anymore” wasn’t one of
his working phrases, so day after day he’d
throw the offending brand at his feet until I figured out what the problem was.
A guy wants to smell like he wants to smell.

Rather than chase all over town to the better department
stores that probably carried the Stetson and where we’d had to wear our
Sunday-go-meeting-clothes just to walk in the doors, I finally started ordering
Don’s Stetson online at $9.00 a stick plus shipping. I know, I know that’s a ridiculous
price to pay. My husband grew up poor and later in life grew into a bit of a
label snob and to make it worse he was a bulk buyer. If he needed paper towel, for
example, he’d fill up the back of the Blazer with paper towel without thinking
about his limitations on storage space. Formerly poor boys don’t like running
out of stuff, it brings back old feelings that are better left in the past. We
all have our quirks when we look close enough but his weren’t hard to miss. Recently,
I found out that Wal-Mart carries Don’s brand of deodorant but it wouldn’t have
mattered since we’ve boycotted that chain of stores since Ring was a pup and he’s
been gone so long I don’t even remember where the old Beagle is buried.

When I found the Stetson deodorant online and showed Don the
website, he was desperately trying to tell me to order more than the two I had
selected in the shopping cart window. “Okay,” I told him, “I’ll order three.”
‘No!’ was one of his working phrases and we bargained back and forth until I
got him down to me ordering six deodorants instead of “ten clock ten”---translation,
10 times 10 or in other words, he wanted me to order 100! “It
will all evaporate before you can use it up,” I told him, “if we order any more
than six.”

Fast forward to when Don died, one of the first things I did
was clean his presence out of the bathroom---tooth brush, comb, brush,
disability things he needed in the shower---but when it came to his stash of
unused Stetson deodorant... well, I guess I was too cheap to throw them out and
who donates that sort of thing to the Salvation Army? If you’re guessing that I’ve
been using them since Don died and the empty container sitting next to the computer
is the last of the lot, you’d be right. I figured no one was going to get close
enough to my body to detect “the rich, masculine blend of rugged woods and
spices” as promised in the Stetson advertisements, so I didn’t mind leaving my
cheap brand behind to use up his high-end stuff. Now, near the end of my third
year of widowhood, I get to go shopping for my own scented deodorant, something
girlie. But I knew I wanted to write about this particular chapter in my “widow’s
workbook” thus the container sat by my monitor as a reminder. (Like I’ve said
many times in this blog, a widow’s work never seems to end.)

Thursday, December 25, 2014

I felt like I was on a roller coaster and I hadn’t even
left the house in more days than an elf could count on her jingle bells. I don’t
know exactly how many that is, but it’s a lot. For days leading up to Christmas
I had a feeling behind my eyes like I’d been crying hard and the exhaustion
that comes after a soul-reaching cry like that had settled into my bones. Only
I hadn’t been crying and I didn’t even think I was sad enough to squeeze out a
tear if I tried. “Queue the cameras, the widow’s going to cry. Cut! Get her an
onion!” What the heck was wrong with me?
I thought maybe the mini sugar binge I was on could have caused it or maybe the
bag of vinegar and sea salt kettle chips I ate and shouldn’t have mixed with my
high blood pressure made me feel the way I did. I haven’t had those sorts of
things in my diet for months. Maybe being naughty instead of nice had caught up
with me? Then I obsessed thinking I was dying. Nope, my pulse was still strong
and the dog wasn’t checking my breath the way he does sometimes when he’s wondering
if it’s time to start digging my grave. (Hint: Never shut your eyes around a
Schnauzer.) Having ruled dying out of the equation, I thought maybe I was going
through the holiday blues and was getting too old to recognize the symptoms. In
the end decided I needed to take an aspirin and call the doctor in the morning.
Maybe a blood test was in order.

Queue the e-mail from my niece offering to pick me up for
the Christmas Eve party at her sister’s house out in the boondocks. Mind you Google
says this takes her out of her way by 68 miles round trip (she says less, who
you gotta believe?) and I stressed over the decision to let her do it, or not. We
had three to five inches of wet, heavy snow predicted and I had already sent a
text to my youngest niece saying that my old eyes and the predicted weather was
going to keep me at home. God, I felt bad about that! Family who don’t always get
to attend her annual party because of work or living out of state, were going
to be there this year, not to mention we have two new babies in the family to maul
and plaster with affection. Not to mention that I also had the photo essay
books of my mom and dad back from the printer and ready to give out. The roller coaster chucked its way up to
the top by the time the noon weather forecast was over. The storm had been downgraded
and I decided to accept my niece’s more than kind offer.

For the rest of the day and into the night the roller
coaster got stuck at the top. How cool is that? After the noon weather report was
over I threw together my marinated four bean salad and hoped it could do its
job in six hours instead of the required overnight marinate. I had some Tuscan,
herb infused olive oil (sun-dried tomatoes and garlic) and Sicilian Lemon
infused balsamic vinegar that both cost a fortunate and I figured they would more than make
up for the lack of hours. I left the half a cup of red onions out of my recipe just in case
six hours wasn’t enough time to soak the rawness out of them. Maybe if I didn’t
tell anyone they wouldn’t notice. It was a recipe my mother always made for
parties when I was growing up and I improved with the foodie quality oil and
vinegar. I hadn’t made it in a long time but a few people at the party remembered
it from years ago. My niece’s mother-in-law even asked me for the recipe. I doubt anyone has ever asking ME, the inept-cook, for a recipe before.

The down-graded one to three inches of snow never
materialized. Still, it was rainy and not the best driving conditions but I was
happy the little kids all got cheated out of their promised white Christmas. Safe
driving conditions always trumps ‘pretty’ in my book. (Screw Santa and his
sleigh. He could use wheels like the rest of us.) The party was all the sweeter
because I hadn’t planned on going and it was the first time since Don’s stroke
in 2000 that I had a designated driver so I was able to drink all the red wine
I wanted. For my brother and me, red wine is a family tradition that goes all
the way back to when we were nine-ten years old and my Italian dad would give us each
a shot glass full on special occasions. I had three glasses of wine on Christmas
Eve, ate way too many sweets but I had the best time.